Subject: (urth) some help? Mary King (famous equestrian), Riverman (famous stud horse), and horse races vs. the Odal rune (inheritance) in Sorcerer's house (Marc Aramini)

From: Robert Pirkola <rpirkola at hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 10 May 2018 18:52:16 +0000

I've been thinking about this for a bit and am not really clear what you mean by the dreaminess of the scene with Cathy Ruth and the gnome-jeweler who exclaims about Bax's sapphire ring but refuses to talk about Skotos.  The scene is in a letter to George for one so the b.s. radar should start flashing there.  Is that what you are talking about?  In any event, your trianulus theory is very strong in my opinion and perhaps it lends some insight into that scene.    Are you saying that there are three layers to the narrative and that most persons and significant items in the book have three natures?  I read your thesis as Fantasy (highest order fabrication)/ Myth/(Tall Tale?) (middle order) / "Reality" (lowest order of fabrication).  I feel like you've talked about this kind of hierarchy before in your short story write-ups (or somewhere!) but in relation to a hierarchy of mimesis.  Is this similar in your view?  If so, it is interesting that Cathy Ruth could plausibly be a fabrication (she is never in the presence of George, having been safely tucked into a car after her "rape" just before his arrival at the house).  She could be used as a way to ratchet up the plausibility of Bax's story to George by coming out and showing that a journalist is sniffing around about the supernatural rumors.  In any event, it struck me on rereading some parts that Cathy Ruth is supposed to be raped by the dwarf but when the dwarf is seen with a woman it is one that doesn't match her description at all (I think it was Madame Orizia?).  It seems like this is the woman that was captured and should have been raped so is there some type of hierarchical relationship between Cathy Ruth and Madame Orizia?  And if so who represents which level?  And who is the third?  A clue might be found in Orizia's name meaning which seems to be derived from that of an Amazon queen Orithyia (the daughter of Marpesia, which apropos of your previous post, is the name of a butterfly!  I feel a wave of apophenia coming on).  Remember the coin that has a depiction of a one-breasted Amazon?  This starts to connect a smidge.  Getting back to the restaurant scene, Bax's ring is talked about as a beautiful example of sapphire.  Elsewhere  it is a fire opal.  Still elsewhere it is Ted's ho-hum wedding ring.  One, two, three levels of the hierarchy.  Skotos Strip (reality), Black House (myth), what's the third property?  The castle (fantasy)?  Have you put these relationships into a table and see how they look next to each other?  And I just remembered I wanted to ask . . . What of the Tarot deck the chapters are supposed to represent?  And what about Letters 22 and 23 (both called Silver Bullets) being smack in the middle with 21 letters either side?  Are these significant?  I have brought up the concept of chiasmus and ring composition in the context of AEG but it seems like if it were used it would be used in this book given the prominence of rings in the text.  Heck, even Musashi Miyamoto is mentioned along with his Book of Five Rings(!).  Anyhow, these are a smattering of my thoughts just now.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20180510/9440980f/attachment.html>

---

From: Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 10 May 2018 19:17:52 +0000

Hi Robert.

I am including my revised almost done but not quite done write up as a link
here, only good for one month: https://pastebin.com/Jrf5eazs

Basically everything Bax presents is more or less true from the perspective
of his senses in this reading, but most of it is internal dream states
brought on by the Kikimora house spirit (house larger than its container,
the sleeping mind). I map out the symbols like the fox chasing off the
rabbit on the kimono onto the story of the Kikimora as Winkle (vixen who
sucks the energy out of men) scaring away real love interests given the
rabbit keys of Doris, etc (she's the real love interest - the real
inheritance is the Skotos Strip, the two fake inheritances are the Black
House and Martha Murrey's house (she is "a scarecrow" after traveling as
she says - Kikimora means scarecrow). The question is in how to divide the
two spirits that are not "real" - they exist, but they aren't of everyday
stuff. One would seem to be Kiki and the other Lupine, but she wears skins.
It is not clear which Mary King is associated with. I factor in the
structure given that in the central letters Bax actually sees HIMSELF on
the side of the road with the car and Dorris - cutting through duality is
one of the huge themes, and we have three sets of twins, but only one
"real" set in Bax and George - Ieuan and Emlyn are internal states -
whatever befalls either of them immediately happens to Bax (hits one of
them three times with a stick, gets hit by that guy three times with a
stick, etc) with the Emlyn and Lupine match winning out at the end - the
dream state thing involves the idea that things which are disbelieved is
not remembered. The kikimora brings dreams, and when he is in fairy and
meets Madame Orizia she tells him he is sleeping - he jumps out of bed when
he goes back in the window. It feels that the same thing is happening that
super long night after George is arrested - that much of what happens to
him is in the dream of the kikimora, and that weird interchange with the
waitress (how do you want that done? ... how do you want that done? ... how
do you want that done? ... how do you want that done?) something out of
nightmare.

Cutting through half the letters gives us the tarot, and Madame Orizia
shows us how to split that from kikimora induced fantasy to reality with
her big and small crystal metaphor.

The ogdal fish rune tells me one inheritance is true, that of Skotos and
his dead wife, whoever she was, whose death probably birthed the Kikimora
40 years ago, but all the race track and horse imagery perhaps suggests
something else.

On Thu, May 10, 2018 at 11:52 AM, Robert Pirkola <rpirkola at hotmail.com>
wrote:

> I've been thinking about this for a bit and am not really clear what you
> mean by the dreaminess of the scene with Cathy Ruth and the gnome-jeweler
> who exclaims about Bax's sapphire ring but refuses to talk about
> Skotos.  The scene is in a letter to George for one so the b.s. radar
> should start flashing there.  Is that what you are talking about?  In any
> event, your trianulus theory is very strong in my opinion and perhaps it
> lends some insight into that scene.    Are you saying that there are three
> layers to the narrative and that most persons and significant items in the
> book have three natures?  I read your thesis as Fantasy (highest order
> fabrication)/ Myth/(Tall Tale?) (middle order) / "Reality" (lowest order of
> fabrication).  I feel like you've talked about this kind of hierarchy
> before in your short story write-ups (or somewhere!) but in relation to a
> hierarchy of mimesis.  Is this similar in your view?  If so, it is
> interesting that Cathy Ruth could plausibly be a fabrication (she is never
> in the presence of George, having been safely tucked into a car after her
> "rape" just before his arrival at the house).  She could be used as a way
> to ratchet up the plausibility of Bax's story to George by coming out and
> showing that a journalist is sniffing around about the supernatural
> rumors.  In any event, it struck me on rereading some parts that Cathy Ruth
> is supposed to be raped by the dwarf but when the dwarf is seen with a
> woman it is one that doesn't match her description at all (I think it was
> Madame Orizia?).  It seems like this is the woman that was captured and
> should have been raped so is there some type of hierarchical relationship
> between Cathy Ruth and Madame Orizia?  And if so who represents which
> level?  And who is the third?  A clue might be found in Orizia's name
> meaning which seems to be derived from that of an Amazon queen Orithyia
> (the daughter of Marpesia, which apropos of your previous post, is the name
> of a butterfly!  I feel a wave of apophenia coming on).  Remember the coin
> that has a depiction of a one-breasted Amazon?  This starts to connect a
> smidge.  Getting back to the restaurant scene, Bax's ring is talked about
> as a beautiful example of sapphire.  Elsewhere  it is a fire opal.  Still
> elsewhere it is Ted's ho-hum wedding ring.  One, two, three levels of the
> hierarchy.  Skotos Strip (reality), Black House (myth), what's the third
> property?  The castle (fantasy)?  Have you put these relationships into a
> table and see how they look next to each other?  And I just remembered I
> wanted to ask . . . What of the Tarot deck the chapters are supposed to
> represent?  And what about Letters 22 and 23 (both called Silver
> Bullets) being smack in the middle with 21 letters either side?  Are these
> significant?  I have brought up the concept of chiasmus and ring
> composition in the context of AEG but it seems like if it were used it
> would be used in this book given the prominence of rings in the text.
> Heck, even Musashi Miyamoto is mentioned along with his Book of Five
> Rings(!).  Anyhow, these are a smattering of my thoughts just now.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20180510/03021410/attachment-0001.html>

---

From: Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 10 May 2018 19:34:41 +0000

The one breasted amazon is also ambiguous in gender: is it doris who thinks
it is male? The jeweler insists it is female. Mary King has a name which
could imply a doubled royal gender as  Queen of Heaven King, and ... when
that guy who introduces himself as Emlyn calls Winker a HE for no reason in
the world, we might start to question the nature of the house spirit, given
that a queen and a king seem to show up in the fairy ring, along with the
dwarf and lupine, as Winkle shows Bax, though he realizes it is a dream
(quite correctly in my reading).

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20180510/819c80e7/attachment.html>

---

From: Robert Pirkola <rpirkola at hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 10 May 2018 20:56:02 +0000

Okay, I see what you mean about the dreamlike nature of the dinner scene having looked at the start of it again.  A couple of things popped into my mind in doing so.  First, just before they run into Kiki, whose name is a palindrome and who speaks palindromically.  This in a chapter at the heart of a book of mirrored halves.  If the kikimora is associated with the foxface and they meet her on the trip to the restaurant and on the return trip from the restaurant they meet Mary King, then they should be different.
Mary King phonetically is close to "American".  Doris introduces herself and then asks the apparition for her name which she says is "Mary King".  If she responds "American" and disappears, what does this signify?  On page 155 when Bax is writing to Shell before the Silver Bullets chapters, Mary King is inquired after, even though we won't meet her for several more chapters.  Just before he asks that question, Bax refers to Doris as his "American girlfriend".  Doris = Mary King.
If Doris is otherwise associated with Lupine then the divisions of the characters breaks out more evenly:

Doris/Mary King/Lupine
Martha Murrey/Kiki/Foxface

On May 10, 2018 Marc Aramini wrote:
>The question is in how to divide the
>It is not clear which Mary King is associated with.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20180510/75e216dd/attachment.html>

---

From: Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 10 May 2018 22:06:05 +0000

Well ... if we are looking at this as mirrored halves, it would seem to me
that would imply Mary king and Kiki are the same around the fulcrum of the
dinner - both have shrouds etc. I have good reason not to associate Doris
with the supernatural at all, and as the valid love interest being chased
away, because her super short letters are the inner ring of the triannulis,
and because her middle name is Rose (Rosemary, though gee that resonates
with Mary too argh), and because the fox kimono shows a fox chasing off a
rabbit - Dorris is the rabbit being chased off, not a spirit. The kikimora
brings dreams both to a man and his real-world love interest to drive them
apart. Doris says she is going crazy and will wind up like crazy  Kiki if
she keeps hanging out near his insane house.

In the chapter fox and wolf ... bax talks to mrs. Nabor and Mrs. Murrey.
How frustrating is that?

On Thursday, May 10, 2018, Robert Pirkola <rpirkola at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Okay, I see what you mean about the dreamlike nature of the dinner scene
> having looked at the start of it again.  A couple of things popped into my
> mind in doing so.  First, just before they run into Kiki, whose name is a
> palindrome and who speaks palindromically.  This in a chapter at the heart
> of a book of mirrored halves.  If the kikimora is associated with the
> foxface and they meet her on the trip to the restaurant and on the return
> trip from the restaurant they meet Mary King, then they should be different.
> Mary King phonetically is close to "American".  Doris introduces herself
> and then asks the apparition for her name which she says is "Mary King".
> If she responds "American" and disappears, what does this signify?  On page
> 155 when Bax is writing to Shell before the Silver Bullets chapters, Mary
> King is inquired after, even though we won't meet her for several more
> chapters.  Just before he asks that question, Bax refers to Doris as his
> "American girlfriend".  Doris = Mary King.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20180510/f60c86b3/attachment.html>

---

From: Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 10 May 2018 22:06:54 +0000

Also the chapter with Mary king and skotos, letter 21, should be later, so
22 and 23 should be 21 and 22.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20180510/19118536/attachment.html>

---

From: Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 10 May 2018 22:15:41 +0000

Also she is the fish who yields a ring (two different types of bass and an
entirely different fish with the ring in it - later he will get two black
fish dishes, one covered in oriental sauce, and a third of a different type
when Doris gives him the ring. The black fish in oriental sauce is winker,
but the non-black and “different” fish who gives him the real ring is
Doris. There are two different spirits at work in the text that correspond
to the black fish, one of them probably Martha murrey.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20180510/ef11096b/attachment-0001.html>

---

From: Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 10 May 2018 22:33:34 +0000

One other disturbing (or potentially confusing) thing involves how the
first letter of Millie arrives ... her name is Millicent Kay Dunn (m k?)
... she advises bax not to trust Doris and to go for Martha Murrey instead
. That seems like a web too far, but in my writeup I discuss the chain of
possibly supernatural things that leads to Millie’s letter being found at
the end of it. Dissing Doris and endorsing Martha would be in line with the
supposed MO of a jealous kikimora but how on earth could we ever presume to
think Millie is anything but a goal post for Bax?
While I love solving puzzles, there seemed to be far less off the page in
many earlier works. I really don’t like reaching for things, believe it or
not. Mary King and the presence of the long fingered funky handed guy
shaking down some dude about Bax’s friends in prison, with accounts of that
man in newspapers from exactly 40 years ago, bax’s Age and Martha murrey’s
apparent age, all seems like it should add up to something. Even the
wolf/bear murders - there are three. Only one is a man, setting it up as
“different” and real. The others are Martha’s neighbor (remember Mrs.
nabor?) and a nurse (Martha always wanted to be a nurse.) the third is some
guy ... huh.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20180510/67f0ddfc/attachment.html>